String-bean grader.



W. E. URSCHEL.

STRING lBEAN GRADER'.

APPLICATION man JAN. 1919.

Patented Feb. 25, 1919,

3 SHEETSSHEET I.

A TTOR/VEY W. E. UIISCHEL.

STRING BEAN GRADER. APPLICATION FILED IAN.8.19I9.

Patented Feb. 25, 1919.

3 SHEETS-SHEET 2.

ATTORNEY W. E. URSCHEL.

STRING BEAN GRADER. r APPLICATION FILED JAN.`S.19I9.

Patented Feb. 25, 1919.

3 SHEETS--SHEET 3- l/vl/E 70H 0f ff" BYV/ l TTURNEY 'LIAM E. UBISCHEL, 0F VALPARAISO, INDIANA.

STRING-BEAN GRADER.

Specication of Letters Patent. Patented Feb. 25, 1919.

Application filed January 8, 1919. Serial No. 270,229.

To all 'wfwm t 'may Concern.'

Be it known that I, WILLIAM E. URsoHEL, a citizen of the United States, residing in Valparaiso, Porter county, Indiana, have invented a new and useful Improvement in String-Bean Graders, of which the following is a specification.

The object of my invention is to produce a string bean grader to sort the beans into the different sizes required by canneries. Such sorting or grading of string beans takes no account of the len h of the bean but only of its thickness an the grading is effected by having opposing gaging surfaces in the grader from slots sufficiently long to freely permit all beans to pass therethrough lengthwise and exactly broad enough to just permit the thickness or belly of the bean of the desired grade to pass therethrough crosswise or transversely andV to stop from passage all larger beans.

Heretofore such green bean graders as have come into use have been of the reciprocating or so-called end-shake variety. The purely mechanical objections to all such reciprocating apparatuses are well known and need not be recited. But in addition it also happens that such existing graders do their work with a rough approximation only so that the beans, after they have been graded, are run over picking tables where such beans as are cE-size are picked from the body of the mass. It results, therefore, that the accuracy of the grading produced by the present string bean graders really depends upon the sight and judgment of human o erators and isnot, therefore, mechanical y accurate.

Now I have devised a string bean grader which is rotary, in fact cylindrical, in form and which thus does away with the. ob-

jectionable features of reciprocating mechanisms and which grades the beans with such nicety thatsubsequent hand sorting is not essential. What is more my constructionenables me to use gaging slots which run circumferentially, in planes more or less transverse to the cylinder axis, so as to permit gravity to pull: the bean through a gaging slot not merely in the bottom of the cylinder but also for a considerable way up on the sides. l

The construction of my grader is simple and readily understood. It comprises in its illustrated form two interlacedcylinders each composed of a plurality of members, generally mounted eccentrically with respect to each other and both supported on the same rotary travelers. yThe juxtaposition of the members of these interlaced cages is such that the faces of the members of one cylinder form with the opposing faces of the members of the other interlaced cylinder a large number of longitudinal, more or less transverse gaging slots running around the cylinder in various planes. What is more although these yslots are arranged to be of the exact gaging size in the lower half of the cylinder, the arrangement causesone of the cages to be displaced with reference to the other in thek upper half of the cylinder, so as to displace the opposing faces withrespect to each other whereby the gaging slots increase in size at the top sufciently to form broad openings through which any beans which happen to have become clogged in the slot when it was narrower, for gaging purposes, at the bottom, will fall thus automatically clear. The circumferential gaging slot at the bottom becomes a circumferential releasing slot at the top.

All this will more fully appear in the annexed drawing Vin which: F Figure 1 is a section on the line 1-1 of Fig. 2 is a longitudinal side elevation with the top and bottom in cross-section;

Fig. 3 is a diagrammatic sectional detail to illustrate and plan of operation;

Fig. 4 shows the gaging body or casting in perspective; v

Figs. 5 and 5t show details `in section. and i Figa amedifie'd ,gaging Slot and grid@ My grader consists of two interlaced cages which 1 will designate respectively as the A-cage and the B-eage. The A-cage consists of two end rings A, a number of intermediate" ringsV A12' and' a,- numberof rows of castings-or gage/bodies'- A3 all held together into one rigid structure by rods and nuts A. The B-:cage consists of endv rings B' with circular outer faces, and intermediate rings B2, which may be held apart by".spacing' v tubes B3 and which are supplied with ears B5; Rods B* passingrthrough apertures in the two end rings B and through apertures in the ears B5, clamp thewhole into oneV4 supports for" they passage of the clamping rods A. Vlhesefften' castings forni one ring orr'ow' of' castings. Althoughl have, for the sake' ofgre'a-ter perspicuity, shown but four-"ofthese rovvsogage-bodies in Fig: 3, inf'practice'l use" as many rows as may be necessary to constitutel a grading cylinder of sufficient^` length to Y effect the grading withrtherequ-ired `degree 'of accuracy; The rows'of castings Aare separated by annular plates' A2' one o'twhichf liesl between each' two consecutive rows of castings.

The cage, as abovejp'ointed' out, consists oftwo end rings B' aridi a number of parallel intermediate rings B2 ally connected by the tie rods B4," it' being` understood that' the intermediate rings B2 slide in the closely fitted-slotsA34 vin the side wings A33 ot the castingfAjaandthat the bodyl of therings Bg'lieeiactly midway between the cross bars The' slots'AM" thusv act as spacing guides for tlierings B2 which slide up and down in them and the faces ofthe ringsB2 taken with the opposing faces of the bars A@ constitute inthis case strictly transverse galgin'g slots through which the beans to be graded pass. The interlaced cages are sup'- ported in a rotary fashion by'havin'gthe end rings A and B mounted on travelers'or roll'- ers R, which areell'ivenv in anyfsuitable mannervnot considered'necessaiy to show, and which are arrai'igedlso as to give a. tilt to the axis of the grading cylinder;

'lltiejbean'sl to be graded are fed into the cylinder atV the lett'in Fig. 3;. As the cyl'- inder rotates, the beans are drawn up` the side, that isupward o1itli`e1l`eft`,lin Fig., l and then tumble baelfrtoward! the bottom. In this wayfthe'beaiis passy over the Vcircumferential slots in one row of* castings A3 and some of the beans of proper thickness pass through. But the beans, in tumbling 'and falling, will not all drop to the bottom of the same row of castings, for some of them' because of the tilt will fall across the partitionH A2 into the next row oty castings, sothat the mass of beans will gradually pass ronrrthefzteed end, on they left in Fig. 3, to and through the discharge end of the grader, on-the'right in Fig. 3.

The pairs ol? adjacent partitions A2 thus constitute guides for holding the' beans between them more vor less transverse or circumferentfially toV the cylinder which alines them with the grading slots and thus more readily permits their passage therethrough. ils-before stated, the morev or less transverse or circumferential grading slots furnish an unobstructed passage for' thecircumerenftially arranged 'beans at all points inthe lower'halt of the cylinder andy permits the lull pull of the torce of gravity to become ell'ective upon the beairV and notV merely a component of Vthis force as wouldl be th'ecas'e with slots running in' an axial direction in which arrangement the only really eilf'ectivev grading slots would bethose at the' very bottoni whosel walls are vertical, for the walls of' the slots along the sides of the cylinder I away troni the bottom would not be vertical butv in' inclined positions 'which makes these slots inelilective as to be practically useless.

'n addition to having-the guide rings A2 for holding the beans in a' moie'or less truly transverse direction, the longitudinal rods A1 or rather the wings A31l whichy runially .from the feed to the discharge end'of the cylinder actas stirring or more accurately lifting devices for the beans; That is to say string beans which are lying inl the bottom of the cylindei"are'carried up on the lelt, say, oir Fig. S-by theseliifting ribs to a point fromr which they tumble when the downwardactioir of gravity overcomes the lifting action ofthe rib because of the increasing slant ofthe rib. These lifting devices are valuable sincethey produce-a more rapid rearrangement and realinement of the beansv with reference" to the* gage slots and thusincrease the number of bushelshandled for avgiven; size of apparatus.

1The operation of grading and releasingis illilstiated in' Fig. rlli'e rings or ga'g'ing members B2 at the bottom are in ay position to constitute gagingslots with the sidey faces otA the opposi'n g cross armsv A33. These arms aretapered at A3 so aste slidethe beans toL ward the' gagii'ig`4 apertures, which increases theamouiit'ot the'worlr done. At the'topo' the cylinder tl'ierings B2,because of' thetaet that they inove radially withA respect to theI slots at the bottom now become one broad releasing slot at the top. It must be understood in this connection that beans of just the right size frequently get stuck in thesegrader works efectively, however, with a circular traveler,

Instead of making the rings B2 in one solid piece, I may make them in a number of section-s B20 as shown in Fig. 7, each hinged at one end to a rod B", in which case instead of using only three rods B, I should use a larger number of rods. -The bottom hinged section would be drawn by gravity down into the same position as that occupied by the bottom of the solid ring and the gaging would be the same as in the solid ring construction. At the top, I supply a stationary cam C which strikes against a wing B21 on the section B20 to tilt this section upward away from the gaging slots to convert them into releasing slots. The sectional ring construction thus produces the same relative radial movement of the members which form the slots as is effected by the eccentric mounting in the construction of Fig. 1.

The rings A2 form partitions between consecutive rows of castings and the only Way for beans to )ass from the feed to the discharge end of the cylinder is to have them tumble across these partitions, this tumblingV being due to the tilting of the cylinder. In order to produce a more certain feed I may, however, apply these rings so as to give them, for a fraction of a turn, a bias toward the discharge end. This is clearly shown in Fig. 8. The pockets with diagonal webs are 180o apart and contain only one slot. The straight pockets contain two slots. In this way, one complete turn of ring A2 produces a shift of the beans toward the discharge end equal to the distance between a pair of rings A2. The rings or circular members thus take in effect a spiral form which I still designate under the generic name of ring.

By having the rings B2 iny sections, it will also be possible tc have the gaging slots of Fig. 8 on an inclination to the truly transverse as shown in Fig. 9 so that the gaging bodies at each end of this inclined section will have a staggered relation to each other. All of lthese geometric relations I designate as circumferential, although it is to be uns derstood the `farther the gage slots get away from being accurately transverse, the less eilicient. they grow.

It will now' be clear that, broadly considcred, my grader consists ofV a cylinder, corresponding to. the A-cage, in which are a set of transverse or circumferential apertures large enough to permit an unobstructed passage, for t-he beans, anda set of circumferentially arranged members, which register with those apertures, to narrow them to gaging size at the bottom and up the sides but which are radially movable with reference to the cylinder to cause them to withdraw suiliciently from these apertures yat the top and there make them of a size sufficient to release any captured beans.

I claim l. A string bean grader comprising the combination of a rotary cylinder supplied with circumferential apertures to permit an unobstructed. passage for the beans, a set of circumferentially arranged members registering with the cylinder apertures to narrow them to gaging size at the bottom and radially movable to cause their removal therefrom at the top suiiicient to constitute releasing apertures, substantially as described.

2. A rotary green bean grader consisting of a rotary member provided with circumferential apertures to permit an unobstructed passage for the beans and a multiplicity of relatively movable circumferential members, to transform the apertures into gaging slots, substantially as described.

3. A rotary green bean grader consisting of two interlaced cylinders, each having a multiplicity of circularl members, the opposing faces of which constitute gaging slots, substantially as described.

4. A rotary green bean grader having circumferentially arranged ga'ging slots and guides for alining the beans in a circumferential direction, substantially as described.

5. A rotary green bean grader having circumferentially arranged gaging slots, circumferential guides for alining the beans and transverse lifting devices for tumbling the beans, substantially as described.

6. A rotary cylindrical string bean grader having two sets of circumferentia'lly arranged gaging members, movable radially with respect to each other to constitute circumferential gaging slots therebetween at the bottom and releasing slots therebetween at the top substantially as described.

7. A rotary string bean grader comprising circular rows of gage bodies having guiding slots and rings moving in the slots and forming both gaging andk releasing slots with the gage-bodies, substantially as described.

8. A- rotary string bean grader comprising a cage' composed of circular rows of Massima:

gage' bodies, spacing rings and clamping name-to this specification: in the presence' of rods, and anl interlaced ycage composed of two;v subscribing `Witnesses.

end rings intermediate rings and Ciampino s rods, the intermediate rings and gage-bodies WILLIAM E' URbCHEL' forming circumferential ga'gingvslots, subiitnesses: stantlally as described. n THOM A. SCOTT,

In testlmoy whereof I have signed my MITCHELL COFFIN.

Copies ofl this patent may be obtained -for ve cents eaelif-oyr addressing' the Commissioner of !*atentsfY Washington, D. C. 

